The Mark of a Leader " I Don't know"
Was wondering what was the most important quality of leader of a technology firm. My belief is the best leader to lead a tech company is a leader who says "I dont know". With this statement he keeps the options of looking around for possible solutions open. Else he is just committed to a strategy of what he knows and cannot respond to the changing market.
Three leaders who come to mind with a strategy of "I don't know" are Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Ericssons Borje Ekholm. These leaders keep their options open for change. On the other end the leaders who knew exactly what to do, ended up failing. Nokias Stephen Elop on what to do with the Burning platform and the third ecosystem of microsoft mobile platform. It was a strategy dead in the water, who would be excited about a third car rental company which gave the same business model or a third jeweller shop selling similar stuff. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer missing the mobile market, Yahoo's Marissa Mayer trying to take on the Google ad model and the 20 billion strategy of Vishal Sikka of Infosys. These leaders knew exactly how to turn around the company. That meant their ears were shut and mouths were open. It needs to be the other way round. Nowadays companies need leaders who have the courage to say "I don't know". These three liberating words give them the option to look and listen to what is going on.
There was a time when the pace of change was slow and the leaders had a natural advantage over the people who worked for them or their competitors. They had access to better information and had better connects. However the Tech world moves fast and the information accessible to the CEO is also accessible to any one. Information on the changes is external to the organisation.
Stephen Elop's the burning platform memo above gives an account of what is wrong and he knew they had to jump from the platform, but there is no clue on what the options were after jumping. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. That for me is a redflag. There was just one option: jump on the Microsoft platform. By having just one view and an arrogance of "I know it all", Nokias fate was sealed. While it is easy to comment on Nokia, in hindsight, there were options available to Nokia which could have worked. The Infosys target of 20 BUSD by 2020 is not happening without a change in the business model.But they have lost 3 years of time in that process.
The liberated CEO needs to embrace the "I don't know Mantra"
Consulting Lead at Applexus Technologies
7 年Interesting perspective
An interesting non trivial side note is that Stephen Elop was working for Microsoft the years before. I would be very much surprised if that had nothing to do with the platform choice, on the contrary. The only logical choice at that time for anyone with knowledge from that industry, would have been Android. It's funny that even under Microsoft (a company well known for it's arrogance) in the end some Nokia models were made with Android, seems it was unstoppable combination :). And good point :).
Controller at Liding? Stad
7 年Good one
Strategic Service Assurance Leader | Driving Business Growth through Service Excellence | BSS/OSS | Network Solutions I Communications, Media & Information Industry Group | Europe, UK & US markets
7 年A good article. But I still feel that Indian founders should rethink if they really want to let go in the true sense when they hang up their boots. If they want to remote-control a CEO without the requisite authority, they should stop searching the market and instead stick to the comforts of loyal insider.
Founder Torsborg Investment
7 年Spot on.